Seventh Circuit Week in Review: What Do a MySpace Predator, an Unrepresented Corporation, and a Pair of Meth Traffickers Have in Common?

Answer: They all lost their appeals in the Seventh Circuit last week.  In fact, our diligent Seventh Circuit judges issued five new opinions in criminal cases last week, and the defendants lost in all of them.  Here are the highlights:

In the MySpace case, United States v. Morris (No. 08-2329), the defendant attempted to contact a minor through the minor’s MySpace page.  The minor’s mother responded by creating her own MySpace page, in which she posed as a 15 year old, and began a series of communications with the defendant.  After the mom agreed to have sex with him, Morris mailed a bus ticket to her so that they could meet.  The mom reported Morris to the FBI, resulting in his arrest and prosecution.  After his conviction for attempting to transport a minor across state lines to engage in illegal sexual conduct, Morris raised a single issue on appeal: that the person he intended to transport across state lines was neither a minor nor a law enforcement officer posing as a minor, but a private citizen conducting her own sting operation.  However, it is well established in such cases that the defendant has no defense if his intended victim is really an undercover law enforcement officer, and the Seventh Circuit (per Judge Posner) found no basis for distinguishing undercover private citizens: in either situation, the criminal justice system appropriately punishes the defendant for his demonstrated dangerousness. 

Continue ReadingSeventh Circuit Week in Review: What Do a MySpace Predator, an Unrepresented Corporation, and a Pair of Meth Traffickers Have in Common?

Seventh Circuit Week in Review: Machine Guns and Cocaine (And What Thanksgiving Is Complete Without Those?)

The Seventh Circuit had three new opinions in criminal cases in this holiday-shortened work week, with the government winning on all of the major issues in each appeal. 

In the first, United States v. Carmel (No. 07-3906), the Seventh Circuit (per Judge Manion) affirmed the defendant’s conviction for possessing an unregistered machine gun in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 5861.  In addition to raising some case-specific issues relating to a search warrant, the defendant also argued that § 5861 was invalid in light of 18 U.S.C. § 922(o), which criminalizes possession of machine guns.  In essence, Carmel argued that § 5861, which punishes people for not registering their machine guns, makes no sense when § 922(o) effectively precludes registration.  The Tenth Circuit bought this argument in United States v. Dalton, 960 F.2d 121 (10th Cir. 1992), but it was subsequently rejected in seven other circuits.  And now the Seventh Circuit makes eight.  It’s not clear to me, though, why the government would ever charge a defendant like Carmel under § 5861 when § 922(o) is also applicable and carries the same maximum penalty — why not render the Dalton issue moot by using § 922(o) exclusively in these cases?

Continue ReadingSeventh Circuit Week in Review: Machine Guns and Cocaine (And What Thanksgiving Is Complete Without Those?)

Seventh Circuit Week in Review: More and More on the Use of Prior Crimes Evidence

The Seventh Circuit had two new opinions in criminal cases in the past week, with the government winning both appeals.  By some coincidence, both cases involved the use of prior crimes evidence at trial, a topic that was also the focus of my last “Week in Review” post.  Indeed, one of this past week’s cases was strikingly similar in its facts to Perkins from the previous week, but was analyzed in a rather different manner.

United States v. Webb (No. 08-1338) was the new case similar to Perkins.  Webb was arrested in connection with the discovery of drugs in the house of his friend Hartman.  At Webb’s trial on drug trafficking charges, the government introduced into evidence Webb’s 1996 conviction for distributing cocaine.  Following his conviction on the new charges, Webb argued on appeal that this evidence violated Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b), which prohibits the use of prior crimes evidence for the purpose of establishing a defendant’s propensity to commit new crimes.  In response, the government argued (precisely as it had in Perkins) that the prior crimes evidence helped to establish intent and absence of mistake, which are two permissible purposes for such evidence.  In last week’s post, I argued that the Seventh Circuit accepted these arguments too uncritically in Perkins; based on the reasoning of that case, it was hard for me to see how prior drug trafficking convictions would ever be kept out of evidence in new drug distribution cases.

But in Webb, the Seventh Circuit (per Chief Judge Easterbrook) correctly recognized how tenuous the government’s intent/mistake theory was.  The court also recognized the “tension” in its prior cases regarding the use of prior drug crimes evidence.

Continue ReadingSeventh Circuit Week in Review: More and More on the Use of Prior Crimes Evidence